As of March 28, the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) reported 85 homicides since the beginning of the year — the majority of them committed by firearms.

That’s a 6 percent increase over the same period last year — and if the upward trend continues, Philadelphia will be on course to beat last year’s already grisly record. There were 324 murders in 2011, an increase of 6 percent over 2010.

While homicide was on the wane last year in most major U.S. cities, Philadelphia has continued to defy the national trend that has taken violent crimes like murder off the national news radar.